Monday 27 August 2018

Golden Bats - Residual Dread (Album Review)


Release date: August 15th 2018. Label: Domestic LA LA Records. Format: DD/Vinyl

Residual Dread – Tracklisting

1.Trouble In The Sewers 05:50
2.Into The Silver Valley 06:36
3.Nothing 06:00
4.Eye Juices 04:04
5.Outer Body 05:29
6.The Crows Build A Fire In Front Of The Owls' Cave 11:13

Members

Geordie Stafford - Everything

Review

Prolific One Man Sludge/Doom Metal musician Geordie Stafford aka Golden Bats returns with Residual Dread. Parts Doom, Sludge, Stoner and pitch-black Post-Whatever sounds holding everything together. Golden Bats have adopted a more gloomy and bleak feel to their music. As Residual Dread relies more on Doom Metal compared to his previous releases.

That’s no bad thing as Golden Bats creates a heavy psychedelic sound with progressive layers of Sludge Metal and harsh vocals to match.

Opening track – Trouble In The Sewers – is a gloomy and dirty offering that sees Geordie shout his way through a barrage of harsh and pissed off growls that leave you with quite an uncomfortable feeling. The music on the other hand can be quite hopeful at times especially when the psychedelic post-rock/post-metal sounds appear. This is a good style of music to hear on the album. You don’t hear it much times but it does show that Golden Bats aren’t all DOOM AND GLOOM on the album.

Second track – Into The Silver Valley – has elements of Neurosis running through it’s pitch-black cold heart. As this song is one of the gloomiest and heaviest songs on the album. The guitars have a slight NOLA dirge ridden sound that only alienates the listener from the rest of humanity. The bleak lyrics have a sense of truth and realism to them. The Psychedelic Sludge/Stoner Riffs offer a brief sense of hope yet again but it doesn’t last long as Golden Bats soon return to their despairing and bleak monolithic heavy sound.

This album does have a more theatrical occult rock sound compared to Golden Bats previous other records. I wasn’t a fan of this style of sound when I first heard the album. However with multiple listens of the album, I’ve became to admire the brave and weird choices that Geordie has made with this album including the more theatrical occult rock vibes.

The rest of the album follows a similar path as the opening two songs with Golden Bats laying down heavy progressive Sludge Metal riffs. Though don’t be surprised when the whole flow of the album changes into something different and more complex. Nothing and Outer Body are great examples of this happening on the album.

The final song - The Crows Build A Fire In Front Of The Owls' Cave – is perhaps the most daring song of all. As it’s quite epic running almost 12 mins in length. The song does run out of steam towards the end but it’s the journey that the song takes you on with more twisted heavy psychedelic and nightmarish sounds. The music is the strongest part of this song as the song does move into so many different directions that you may seem slightly confused by it all. However I do admire the creativity and complexity of this song above everything else.

Overall, Residual Dread is perhaps Golden Bats most daring, heaviest and adventurous album to date. What more could you possibly want from a Doom/Sludge Metal album?

Excellent and Highly Recommended.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Golden Bats for the promo. Residual Dread is available to buy on Vinyl now from Domestic LA LA Records

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